


Five Reasons Why McCoy Should Dislike Kirk

by syredronning



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-08
Updated: 2010-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-11 14:43:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syredronning/pseuds/syredronning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five reasons why Leonard McCoy should dislike Jim Kirk - and why he still didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Reasons Why McCoy Should Dislike Kirk

**Author's Note:**

> Coming out of discussions about: character differences between TOS and AOS McCoy; why he was such an accomplished doctor at a rather young age; how our parents influence our thinking; possible fall-outs of the Kelvin incident. I'm playing around here; I don't have settled yet on a more definite personal canon for AOS McCoy.   
> Many thanks to ayalesca for beta; all remaining flaws are solely mine.

**It's all about space and alien worlds.**

Jim Kirk loved space; maybe it was more pronounced now that Jim had finally admitted it to himself, but he was a true son of his parents and all he really wanted was to get off Earth and experience some great adventures out in the big, dark void. Signing up for Starfleet was the single best decision in his life, to which he had been pushed by his daddy's best old friend. Talk about brass brats.

Whereas McCoy had grown up in the backwater of the world, some dusty village in… and if there had been aliens, they never came around to see his father. Because the year after Leonard's mother died from some extraterrestrial microbes, Joshua McCoy, Lt., had died onboard the U.S.S. Kelvin. With the loss of wife and brother crushing down on him, Dr. David McCoy went down the sloppy road of alcoholism (well-hidden) and xenophobia (well-known) within a few years, and while alien pathogens and diseases were a daily topic at the McCoy's dinner table, alien creatures wouldn't ever cross their threshold.

Which brings McCoy to…

**This daddy issues thing.**

Jim Kirk was the master of daddy issues and he hadn't even ever met his father. Leonard McCoy had tried to bring across the point once (useless as it had been) that sometimes having no father at all was better than to have a living one, but his own personal drama couldn't compare to Kirk's. His father hadn't been a hero but a doctor without any special reputation, harboring the feeling of loss day-in, day-out until it was but one large gloomy cloud covering their lives. Aliens were after them – or the government, whichever had caused the biggest headline lately. David McCoy became the biggest conspiracy believer this side of the quadrant.

Leonard helped in his father's practice and life, anything from paper works to lending a helping hand in treating patients and trying to keep his father mentally as stable as possible. The only things that saved himself were his obsession with medicine and the biology teacher that took an interest in him when he was twelve. Slowly, Leonard worked his way out of the all-encompassing darkness, putting a large distance between himself and his father. The last contact had been a letter in which the old man pleaded him to come back and help battle a disease Leonard had never even heard of before. He had never replied.

But there were still moments in which his hard-earned, reasonable attitudes to the world – and space - might slip. Usually when he was piss drunk and agitated and succumbed to his phobias like when he had boarded that shuttle and first met Jim Kirk.

Which brings McCoy to…

**The thing about alcohol.**

Of all the men on Earth, Jim Kirk should've been the last to lecture Leonard McCoy about his alcohol intake. Okay, he only did once, but damn him for even trying. And being right about it.

It had been after one of those psychological tests that McCoy barely passed (but he was still too qualified and good at what he did and fuck them if they thought otherwise), when Jim Kirk challenged him into a drinking contest for the first and last time. Of course, Jim lost. In the end, McCoy picked him up and carried him to his apartment.

The next morning, Jim confronted him.

_"You had two bottles of Bourbon without even swaying when getting up, and you made a face as if you hated every single minute."_

"I did. The challenge was your idea."

"You're killing yourself, Bones. Forget about feeling guilty or whatever emotion you're trying to drown. Drinking should be for having fun, getting rid of the tension."

"And all your drinking and fighting, that's supposed to be fun?"

"Sure." Kirk grinned.

"Fuck off." McCoy rolled out of bed and got to his feet. His throat felt dry, and automatically he looked for his flask.

"It's in the bathroom," Jim said.

"I didn't put it there."

"But I did."

Leonard rolled his eyes. Why did he even care about this crazy guy? The flask was next to the mirror, and he screwed it open and was about to drink when he caught his face in the reflection – unshaven, ruddy, with blood-shot eyes. He looked like Mr. Pinbodie, the poor bastard who'd lived in their neighborhood, a not-so-shining example for everything that could go wrong in life. The poor guy drank himself to death – and it wasn't a comfortable one either, with the liver failure and the brain damage and some years as vegetable in a nursery home.

Leonard slowly lowered the bottle; then, in a sudden decision, he turned the flask in his hand and spilled the expensive liquid into the basin until the bottle was empty.

Behind his back, Jim appeared in the door.

"Let's make a deal. You only drink with me, and always make sure I don't get into a fight."

"Deal," Leonard said.

He didn't always keep his word, but at least he stopped drinking when he felt like shit. Which he did over dead patients, injured patients, and worse, in those moments he had no patients to worry about and was all on his own, only a photo of Jo as company (she was eight now and growing up fatherless, and he started to think it was better that way). Or in those nights when the familiar old darkness settled in, inviting him like a lover.

Which brought McCoy to…

**This thing about sex.**

Jim Kirk had sex everywhere, all the time. McCoy couldn't understand how Jim did it, but he sure had success with even the crudest methods of flirting (though the really clever girls like Uhura often gave him a pass). Sex for Jim was a crossover between sports, challenge, recreation, and fun, and not to be confused with deeper feelings. Jim was obviously good at what he did, as no girl had ever complained to the best of McCoy's knowledge. And when he made an ass of himself, at least it was a gorgeous, grandiose ass in true Kirk style.

McCoy, on the other hand, got laid only once after the separation - and he considered it forced upon him, as it was the ex-ex-girlfriend that took him in for a few weeks when he was broke, out of work and waiting for the final divorce hearing. She wanted some kind of reparation, and he tried hard without much luck – years of being put down as drip did wear out a man. And then there was that thing about love, the grand illusion that you'd meet the perfect lover, buy a ring, take a vow, start a family and live happily ever after.

What bullshit, McCoy knew today, and he kept wearing the ring as a reminder of not getting put on ever again. However, it didn't really help with all his emotional hang-ups on a simple thing like sex, and never made taking the first step any easier.

Which finally made McCoy think of…

**This thing about fear.**

Or rather, that Jim Kirk wouldn't even know how to spell the word. Feet on first he'd jump on any bandwagon as long as it would give him that adrenaline rush he seemed to crave. More than once, Leonard would be the one to patch him up after some bar fight, or visit him in the hospital after some battle drill going wrong (trust Jim to find the most ingenious _and_ most dangerous method to solve a problem).

While McCoy, even when outgrowing the doomed thinking of his father, never had reason to become an optimist. Once he had learned, much too early in life, that between living and dying there might be only a second, one little change of fate, and that Death would take people without regards of their age, their family, their brilliance, or their love of life, being cautious and aware had become his internal motto. He tended to forget that temporarily when it came to his patients, but once he had a moment to think through a situation, he'd always take the more defensive, safer option. By all rights, he should hate anyone whose primary mission in life seemed to be getting into the thick of things all the time.

**But still…**

There were the points they had in common. That they were both outsiders in the shining, glitzy world of high-achieving school kids like Chekov; that they both brought their dark, painful history into everything they did so that these lessons learned at least would have some merits for the future; that they would both be themselves, without excuses, following their obsessions and beliefs without looking back or buckling in front of superiors. Life had bent them already; the academy could only straighten out some of the bumps and polish them enough to fit – barely - into the ensemble of streamlined kids that filled the hallways.

"Go back to sleep, Bones," Jim's low voice tore McCoy out of his thoughts. Morning had broken, stray rays of light coming in through the blinders. The night was over, spent on reflection.

Leonard looked at his bed neighbor. Looking at the tally of pros and cons, they shouldn't even have gotten along one damn minute. But against the odds, they'd connected over their very first flight and spent the next year in the same dorm and almost in each other's pockets. A constantly confusing fact of life to their peers and instructors.

"Or if you can't sleep, spend your time with me instead of chewing over the past." Jim rolled around, pressing the length of his body against him.

"Greedy bastard," Leonard whispered, but slipped his hand between them anyway.

Because, while statistics may be fine, they never showed the finer points of reality.


End file.
